Keep in mind that 'net hits' are needed for the spell to succeed. A tie also means the spell fizzles. Another important factor is that the spellcaster's total hits (not net hits) are limited by the Force of the spell.

Yep, which is exactly what Jaid mentioned a few posts ago.

You still get your Body (Willpower in some cases?) roll to 'soak' damage.

All that's mentioned is that as Direct Spells hit you form the inside, you don't get any Armour to help you Soak.

So you roll once as part of the opposed test, then you get a chance to reduce the damage done, if the Direct Spell hits.

No, you don't. You get the initial Willpower (or Body) roll to see if you can avoid it/shake it off, and that's it as far as defense against Direct Combat spells, unless you have the benefit of protection from something like Counterspelling or Magic Resistance.

See? resist with body if P willpower if M, net hits + force = damage.

Note the difference between that and Indirect casting and see that the precedent is set that if you get a soak roll it tell your how.

Again, if you want to play it that way, cool, I don't because the way we play most of my players opponents have counterspelling (usually combat spec'd because that makes sense) So they usually have a pretty decent chance of resistance.

Chris

That isn't a soak roll, that is a dodge roll by another name. Successes don't stage down the the spell's damage, they negate the magician's successes. If the Magician's successes are reduced to 0, the spell fizzles.

If you were soaking the damage each success would reduce the damage directly.

That is indeed the case if the magician and the target are both standing still in a well lit and open space with no concealment whatsoever.

In my experience of typical SR combat situations (ambushes and sniping aside), I find it much more common that magicians lose 4-8 dice from their spellcasting dice pool to visibility and cover modifiers. That kind of thing will change your basic probabilities significantly.

And the opponents would (i assume) be sufering the same penalties.

That doesn't change the binary nature of D Spells, and they either suck totally (to hard to hit with and do nothing but drain) or kill outright (overcast at Force 12 at the poor chump not to have a mage next to him).

Edit: I should also add that those same penalties would apply to indirect spells as well, wouldn't they.

Which are still 'opposed' to hit, and you gain a damage resistance 'soak' roll with them as well...

Why ever use indirect spells? (Unless you're doing something funky wih an elemental effect...)

Edit: 2

Altohugh I knew this, it's just dawned on me that unlike Indirect spells, as direct spells either have no resistance test or ingore armour anyway, so will never be able to stage a Physical D spell down to Stun...

Unlike an Indirect spell.

So again, why ever use an indirect spell?

With just the BBB I can make a street legal character with 8+7+2+2+3 = 22 combat spell resistance dice (14 Combat Counterspelling Dice and 8 Willpower). Add in Willpower increasing drugs and/or 'ware and I've got that up to 26 Resistance dice. Add in Genetech from Augmentation and it is up to 27.

Make it a magician providing counterspelling to a mundane and I can add in the Magic Resistance Quality at 4 for 31 dice. Add in Street Magic, give that Mundane the Magical Guard Power via Endowment and Counterspelling 6 (Combat +2) and have him but hits and that is 33 Dice. Have the spirit who is providing endowment be Force 4 and add in his counterspelling just to make it an even 34 dice. You can buy 8 hits with that. you can buy 8 hits with two less than that, actually, and 9 with two more (which aren't difficult to get). With team counterspelling, there is simply no upper limit to the number of spell resistance dice one may have. With initiation and Shielding, one can get even more dice.

Make it a Physical Direct Combat spell and I can do the same with 13 Body and the same number of counterspelling dice. Or I could make him a Troll instead of a Dwarf for 1 less Willpower and 3 more Body.


Add Half Impact Armor, (Lets make it a liberal 10) and that's 44, enough to buy 11 successes.

But, if we assume that the character we are shooting at is a single Mountain magician dwarf rather than a dedicated team of magehunter dwarfs. It'll be resisted with, reasonably 6 + 5 (Combat +2) (Mountain +2) (Combat Counterspelling Focus +3) + (Half Impact 4) = 22 vs 11 damage, which means that it is likely that he will take damage.

Against magicians, particularly initiates and teams, indirect is best. Indirect also may not require LOS to the target depending on how you interpret the rules (and I know that there is an argument about this). The general consensus is that Indirect spells can be blind-fired and indirect area spells can hit unseen characters.

That's fine. That's a noted change to the usual Body + Armour roll.

The ommision of 'how' to take the DRT under Direct spells doesn't mean you don't get one. As you do get one,when taking any damage, unless noted otherwise...

The number of successes of those 15 dice is still limited by the spell Force whereas the counterspelling dice isn't.

Also you can get spirits with Magic Guard power and a Mentor with bonus for counterspelling. Any combat mage can be stonewalled by counterspelling if he chooses to stick with Direct Combat spells. Furthermore, you have Metamagics like Shielding and things like Background Count to make things even worse.

Which is why I said is was sort of a Damage Resistance test, as it does indeed directly reduce the damage you take from the spell with each hit you make. If you make as many (not even more, just an equal amount) hits as the caster, the spell doesn't work at all.

Isn't that exactly the same as the ID 'attack' test though?

You can get a Dwarf's willpower up to 9 at chargen without resorting to temporary boosts or stretching the rules, with temporary boosts, you can get that up to 13. Add in Magic Resistance 4 and you've got a natural 13 resistance dice before boosts. Take Braveheart as a Genetic Heritage and that's 14 before boosts raised to 15 by a few puffs of a joint of Deepweed and 17 by slap-patch of Nitro. That's before counterspelling.

So, a genetically engineered pot-smoking dwarf can throw as many dice as your ideal mage can. Give him Magic Resistance and he can throw more dice than your ideal make can. Give your magician a Force 3 combat spell focus and the Dwarf is still better.

is 'cause dwarves are cool!
also would make one hell of a mage with that many dice to resist stun damage . .

No. It differs in a number of ways.

First, with Indirect Combat Spells, there is a normal Reaction est (like in Ranged Combat) to see if the spell hits. You don't get this at all with Direct Combat spells.

Secondly, the number of hits matter more with Direct Combat spells, because if you can get an equal amount of hits in defence, the spell fizzles. This is not the case with Indirect Combat spells, the damage from which has to be reduced all the way to zero.

For example, JoeBob casts a Force 5 Flamethrower spell at QuikRik and gets 7 hits on his spellcasting test (but only 5 will count as he is limited to a maximum number of total hits equal to the spell's Force). QuikRik trips up and only scores 3 hits on his reaction test, so the spell actually hits QuikRik, who then gets to resist with his Body of 4 plus half of his Lined Coat, so 6 dice. At present the spell is going to do 7P to Rik (Force 5 +2 net successes to hit), but each success that QuikRik now makes will reduce the damage. Let's say he gets another 3 hits, and reduces the damage down to 4P.

Same example, but using Manabolt. QuikRik gets no Reaction test, and only gets his Willpower to resist JoeBob's 5 hits. If QuikRik actually gets 5 hits on his resistance test, the spell does not work at all, even though it would do 6P damage if he only got 4 hits on his resistance test. The damage does not need to be reduced all the way, because the spell fizzles way before that could happen.

This is exactly what I see the Magic + Sorc versus Bod/Will as. The Direct version of the Magic + Sorc versus Reaction test ID get.

They get exactly the same modifiers, bar CS.

If it's treated as a Ranged attack, if you get zero net hits on the Magic + Sroc versus Reaction test, doesn't it miss, exactly like a D spell 'fizzling' ? Or do Ranged attacks automatically hit, no matter what net successes you get on the to-hit opposed test?

And what happens if QuikRik got 5 on his reaction test?

What happens if QuikRik 'trips' on his Willpower test and get 3 (as he did in the original exmaple).

He suffers 7P with no soak...

So how would it be *ever* worse to throw the Manabolt at QuikRik than the flamethrower?

it misses HIM completely . . but now replace flamethrower with fireball and he's most likely still getting caught in the blast . . as is everyone else in that area . . Elemental Spells allways hit SOMETHING . . while mana spells that get resisted hit NOTHING as far as i understand . .